“No matter how badly we may want to put something back together, sometimes God is the only one who has the glue.”
I was brought to this realization last night in a dream. Sometimes you really do reach the “after you’ve done all you can” point when it comes to certain things. That point where words no longer matter and actions lose all effectiveness. This is what we call a “God Problem.” It is one that we have neither the expertise nor the tools to fix. But in God’s eyes, what better predicament to find yourself in? Matthew 11:28-29 (AMP) says:
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.”
God LOVES to pick up where we leave off as it gives us every opportunity to jumpstart or revitalize our relationship with Him. As I was reading this verse, He said to me, “Just get on my page and all of your solutions will meet you there.” There’s a freedom and a lightening of the load that comes along with trading the issues that plague the mind for God’s load. Give God the “stuff” and focus on getting into Him and who He is (as He says in the scripture, “Learn of Me”). It also gives Him the chance to use His state of the art tools and showcase His flawless workmanship with regard to life’s problems. He has within Him the ability to direct hearts, [re]unite people, achieve the impossible, perfectly time our placement with the right opportunities, defy all odds, etc. He orders our lives and their contents with such precision…all He wants us to do is be willing to trade it all for a closer walk with Him…
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Last Minute Thoughts...
I recently rekindled my efforts to read through the Bible in chronological order and I just finished reading in Genesis 22 about Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac. I’ve heard the story numerous times in Sunday School and over the pulpit, but this time the importance of sacrifice was emphasized in my mind…and how much God appreciates it. Whenever sacrifice is involved between me and God, its often to see where my heart is. Philippians 3:7-8 (AMP) says:
“But whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to consider as [one combined] loss for Christ's sake. Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One)…”
Right there is where He wants it…the deepest parts of our hearts reserved for only Him at all times. With a Heavenly Father who desires such an intimate dwelling with us, it makes me wonder how, on our end, it seems so much easier to hold back from Him. In any relationship, the ability to let go is the primary draw. But in this case, whatever we could “let go” is being released into the most capable hands. Author C.S. Lewis said it best: “When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” Whatever He asks us to give up, He always gives it back better His way and in His time.
Anything I can lay before Him is nothing compared to His ultimate sacrifice on the Cross. For that, I'll forever be grateful...with my whole heart.
“But whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to consider as [one combined] loss for Christ's sake. Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One)…”
Right there is where He wants it…the deepest parts of our hearts reserved for only Him at all times. With a Heavenly Father who desires such an intimate dwelling with us, it makes me wonder how, on our end, it seems so much easier to hold back from Him. In any relationship, the ability to let go is the primary draw. But in this case, whatever we could “let go” is being released into the most capable hands. Author C.S. Lewis said it best: “When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” Whatever He asks us to give up, He always gives it back better His way and in His time.
Anything I can lay before Him is nothing compared to His ultimate sacrifice on the Cross. For that, I'll forever be grateful...with my whole heart.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
If Trusting God Came With Instructions...
I was listening to Joyce Meyer one morning this week and she encouraged everyone to find out what God is really dealing with them on and dedicate themselves to working on it and getting to the other side of it. Mine is trusting God. It’s like I’ve got this baseline trust, but not being totally informed tends to be a source of contention. For this reason, many of us believers tend to be “Indian givers” with our lives [when it comes to God]. We put them in His hands, but continue to attend to them and, in some cases, take them back when we do not understand what He is doing. While reflecting on her suggestion, I thought to myself that if trusting God was as simple as following step-by-step instructions, most of us would follow them to a “T.” Then it dawned on me that the Word actually does instruct us. Proverbs 3:5-6 (AMP) says:
“Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.”
In essence, we must remove ourselves from the equation and give God full custody of every component of our lives. Coupled with faith, trust is the proverbial “shortest distance between two points”…us and God. EVERYTHING must be surrendered, including our preconceived notions, our timetables, our specifications, our plans, etc. But ultimately, it’s really not about trusting Him for the stuff being handed over…it’s about becoming more acquainted with the One you are handing it to.
It is who God is that makes trusting Him a win-win situation. This world belongs to Him and everything in it is subject to His authority. He runs the show, yet He has a vested interest in those of us who have a desire to live for Him. At the core of every move He makes is an unparalleled love for us. Each of our lives is like His factory, each product manufactured reflecting His glory, durability withstanding. Only He knows the inputs and process flows necessary to produce the optimal results…all He asks is that we seek to know Him and pursue His ways (Matt. 6:33). His character is one that must be experienced as it is too comprehensive to relay. But if we follow His instructions exactly, we will find that He is most definitely One that we can “lean on, trust in, and be confident in” with all of our hearts and minds.
Friday, August 28, 2009
The Why ?
To the extent that it is possible, I've decided to stop asking God "why." Not because I don't wonder (because I do), but because my progress in this life has known no greater hang-up. The minute something unexpected happens, I embark on the fruitless endeavor of finding out “why.” I’ve somehow concluded that I can pretty much deal with anything if I know the reasoning behind what’s going on. But that’s not true at all. I think that even if God gave me a “play by play” of my life, nothing short of a reversal or removal of the hard times would satisfy me. In this world, it’s one’s actions that garner trust. As a result, the passage of time where it seems like nothing is happening can make one question the sincerest and most concrete of promises.
Isaiah 55:8-11 (AMP) says:
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and snow come down from the heavens, and return not there again, but water the earth and make it bring forth and sprout, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return to Me void [without producing any effect, useless], but it shall accomplish that which I please and purpose, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
The frustration we experience isn’t from the unanswered question, but rather our pursuit of God’s rationale, which is infinite, uncontainable, and impossible for the human mind to grasp. But in these past couple of months God has made it clear to me that it’s not my understanding that gets me through…it’s my faith. He took me to Matthew 17:20 (AMP):
“He said to them, Because of the littleness of your faith [that is, your lack of firmly relying trust]. For truly I say to you, if you have faith [that is living] like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to yonder place, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”
Faith mobilizes God’s power in our lives. When we have faith in Him, we give Him the right of way to proceed in the situation. It allows Him to bypass our “why” blockages and not only apply a divine solution, but fortify our foundations and prepare us for our next levels in Him. God makes all of His moves on purpose. Although it’s often hard to grasp life’s unexplainables, I’m learning to turn my questions into “thank you’s,” knowing that there’s no greater fuel for the course than my faith.
Isaiah 55:8-11 (AMP) says:
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and snow come down from the heavens, and return not there again, but water the earth and make it bring forth and sprout, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return to Me void [without producing any effect, useless], but it shall accomplish that which I please and purpose, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
The frustration we experience isn’t from the unanswered question, but rather our pursuit of God’s rationale, which is infinite, uncontainable, and impossible for the human mind to grasp. But in these past couple of months God has made it clear to me that it’s not my understanding that gets me through…it’s my faith. He took me to Matthew 17:20 (AMP):
“He said to them, Because of the littleness of your faith [that is, your lack of firmly relying trust]. For truly I say to you, if you have faith [that is living] like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to yonder place, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”
Faith mobilizes God’s power in our lives. When we have faith in Him, we give Him the right of way to proceed in the situation. It allows Him to bypass our “why” blockages and not only apply a divine solution, but fortify our foundations and prepare us for our next levels in Him. God makes all of His moves on purpose. Although it’s often hard to grasp life’s unexplainables, I’m learning to turn my questions into “thank you’s,” knowing that there’s no greater fuel for the course than my faith.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Presence of God
In the past few years, I’ve come to grips with some hard, but invaluable truths regarding my relationship with God. I can’t count the times that I’ve felt like God has left me hanging. I practically beg to hear from Him and sometimes I feel like I’m met with deafening silence. I constantly pray for either a reversal or huge change for my circumstances and the response seems like more of the same. But according to His Word, being absent from the lives of His children is so not like Him. Hebrews 13:5 (AMP) says:
“…for He [God] [Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!].”
He said that He is always there and He cannot lie. So quite honestly, if I’m feeling abandoned, it is safe to say that He never left…it’s me. Ouch.
In one of the early issues of “The Sparrow,” I called the heart the “headquarters” of our salvation. It’s where God gets a spiritual pulse on us…where He settles when we accept Him…it’s where our trust and belief in Him originates. If God “inhabits the praises of His people,” has my neglect in acknowledging God for who He is made my heart unlivable? Has my keen attention to “what it looks like” and my dwindling faith put Him out?
Contrary to popular belief, God’s presence doesn’t always appeal to one’s feelings as they have the uncanny ability to distort the facts. His presence is n0t solely defined by the great times...His prompt solutions to my problems…or His taking me out of the pit of despair I sometimes find myself wallowing in. If it was, I would never know that He has the ability to be everything to everyone in every way at all times. And I would never be afforded the opportunity to dig into the arsenal of God’s character and zoom in on certain parts that make up who He really is.
His presence isn’t evidenced only by hearing, seeing or feeling Him. I believe it started with Psalm 139: 16 (The Message):
“Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.”
The Master Architect of my life…the only One who knows the answers to the whys, hows, and whens, did a walk-through of my life before I got here. He not only outfitted it with every obstacle and trial I’d need to overcome to equip me, but complemented them with ample blessings to showcase His goodness and give me momentum. He built our lives to require His presence, so much so that getting through would not be possible without Him. As life progresses, we can draw Him near and keep Him close by praising Him. We can invoke His presence at all times by acknowledging and clinging to what we know about Him and relentlessly seeking the things that we do not.
Matthew 5:8 tells us that it’s the pure in heart who shall see God. We have to keep our hearts livable…such that even if we can’t sense God’s presence, we know that He’s there because we’ve done all we can to make Him “feel at home.” Although He may seem absent at times, God is ALWAYS working on our behalf to reveal and produce His “highest and best” in us. Rather than cloud our hearts with faithlessness and disbelief, allow God to show you who He is…
“…for He [God] [Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!].”
He said that He is always there and He cannot lie. So quite honestly, if I’m feeling abandoned, it is safe to say that He never left…it’s me. Ouch.
In one of the early issues of “The Sparrow,” I called the heart the “headquarters” of our salvation. It’s where God gets a spiritual pulse on us…where He settles when we accept Him…it’s where our trust and belief in Him originates. If God “inhabits the praises of His people,” has my neglect in acknowledging God for who He is made my heart unlivable? Has my keen attention to “what it looks like” and my dwindling faith put Him out?
Contrary to popular belief, God’s presence doesn’t always appeal to one’s feelings as they have the uncanny ability to distort the facts. His presence is n0t solely defined by the great times...His prompt solutions to my problems…or His taking me out of the pit of despair I sometimes find myself wallowing in. If it was, I would never know that He has the ability to be everything to everyone in every way at all times. And I would never be afforded the opportunity to dig into the arsenal of God’s character and zoom in on certain parts that make up who He really is.
His presence isn’t evidenced only by hearing, seeing or feeling Him. I believe it started with Psalm 139: 16 (The Message):
“Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.”
The Master Architect of my life…the only One who knows the answers to the whys, hows, and whens, did a walk-through of my life before I got here. He not only outfitted it with every obstacle and trial I’d need to overcome to equip me, but complemented them with ample blessings to showcase His goodness and give me momentum. He built our lives to require His presence, so much so that getting through would not be possible without Him. As life progresses, we can draw Him near and keep Him close by praising Him. We can invoke His presence at all times by acknowledging and clinging to what we know about Him and relentlessly seeking the things that we do not.
Matthew 5:8 tells us that it’s the pure in heart who shall see God. We have to keep our hearts livable…such that even if we can’t sense God’s presence, we know that He’s there because we’ve done all we can to make Him “feel at home.” Although He may seem absent at times, God is ALWAYS working on our behalf to reveal and produce His “highest and best” in us. Rather than cloud our hearts with faithlessness and disbelief, allow God to show you who He is…
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Leaving A Legacy
Yesterday morning I was in an exit meeting with the management of this bank I’m examining. About halfway through the meeting, the Chairman of the Board began to question another examiner. And he was so sure of what he knew because his family “had been in banking since 1944, had been through 10 recessions, and that his father had drilled into he and his brothers how to manage a bank during these times.” Although he is a lawyer and a retired U.S. Senator, he has always had a strong foundation in banking. His training was obviously beneficial because he and his brothers are chairmen of their own banks and hold ownership in each other’s banks. His success is definitely notable, but the most striking thing, to me, was what his father did for he and his family.
Proverbs 22:6 tells us to,
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Legacy-building…how much time and attentiveness is being dedicated to this vital task? I’m convinced that there is something major to this. And although all of the accomplishments listed above are great, I think that many people neglect to instill and build upon the most important component…which is a relationship with God. I read a very poignant quote in “Grace Will Lead Me Home” by Robin Givens:
“The greatest legacy you can leave for your children is your relationship with God.”
No, I’m not a parent…but I have awesome ones who were “all-in” with God. Parents who were imperfect, but gave Him everything they had and were constantly striving to align their words and their actions. I heard their admonishments and encouragements, but I also saw my parents heed them and encourage themselves when it got tough. Seeing them stick it out with God has let me know that I can do that, too…and I hope one day to do that for my own children.
Your relationship with God is not something that is only imparted. It is observed, emulated, and perpetuated. And this is not just for parents…its for everyone who has anyone watching them. Leaving a legacy for your children and those who look up to you is like having a stage all to yourself with a captive audience. How you “perform” will play a huge role in shaping the lives of your successors. Give it all you’ve got.
Proverbs 22:6 tells us to,
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Legacy-building…how much time and attentiveness is being dedicated to this vital task? I’m convinced that there is something major to this. And although all of the accomplishments listed above are great, I think that many people neglect to instill and build upon the most important component…which is a relationship with God. I read a very poignant quote in “Grace Will Lead Me Home” by Robin Givens:
“The greatest legacy you can leave for your children is your relationship with God.”
No, I’m not a parent…but I have awesome ones who were “all-in” with God. Parents who were imperfect, but gave Him everything they had and were constantly striving to align their words and their actions. I heard their admonishments and encouragements, but I also saw my parents heed them and encourage themselves when it got tough. Seeing them stick it out with God has let me know that I can do that, too…and I hope one day to do that for my own children.
Your relationship with God is not something that is only imparted. It is observed, emulated, and perpetuated. And this is not just for parents…its for everyone who has anyone watching them. Leaving a legacy for your children and those who look up to you is like having a stage all to yourself with a captive audience. How you “perform” will play a huge role in shaping the lives of your successors. Give it all you’ve got.
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